What If Earth's Atmosphere Became Super-heated to 1,000 Degrees for 5 Seconds?

Have you ever felt like it was so hot out that you could cook an egg on the road? Do you enjoy incredibly spicy foods just for the thrill of it? Well, imagine living in an area that's as hot as fire around 1000°. Could anything survive or would we all be barbecued? It's time to fire up the grill as things are going to get toasty. What would happen if the atmosphere was as hot as lava? Would our air catch fire if it was heated to 1000°? And could life survive this extreme heat if it only lasted 5 seconds? This is what if, and here's what would happen if the Earth's atmosphere became super heated to 1000° for five seconds. Throughout history, Earth has experienced some pretty extreme heat, ranging from 204 degrees to 2027°. Mind you, these temperatures occurred billions of years ago during Earth's cooling process, but certain events provided temporary heat pulses hot enough to almost wipe out all life on Earth. The asteroid impact that demolished the dinosaurs managed to bump up the global temperature by 5° for 100,000 years. This impact was equivalent to more than 1 billion Hiroshima bombs, and yet life still managed to survive. So how did anything manage to live through this? Well, life survived that devastating asteroid because it was a localized event. Areas close to the impact experienced an intense but short lived heat blast that lasted 1 1/2 minutes. It was so hot that parts of Earth's atmosphere began to boil. That's around 20 times hotter than any human could tolerate. However, simulation research suggests that this heat wasn't evenly distributed across the surface of the Earth. Areas further from the impact experienced a less intense heat wave that lasted up to 7 1/2 minutes. What's most peculiar is that researchers discovered that the areas closest to the impact didn't catch fire. Rather, it was in the areas further away from the blast that went up in flames. While these areas weren't as hot as the impact site, the heat lasted long enough for plants to ignite, causing devastating wildfires. OK, but what would happen if we cranked up the heat throughout the atmosphere? Would just five seconds of heat be enough to wipe us out? Well, it's not the five seconds that we need to be worried about, it's what happens after. The first thing to catch fire would be our trees, igniting wildfires on a global scale. If you live in a log cabin, you might want to relocate. The spread of wildfires worldwide could prevent animals from moving to safety unless they were deep underwater. Any humans outside would experience second degree burns. Inhaling the air would be lethal and would destroy your respiratory tract. People who inhale smoke from fires have a greater risk of death than the burn victims due to severe lung injuries. We would all have to hunker down in a refrigerated bunker somewhere to survive, and realistically it would take weeks or even months for the wildfires to go out. Like with an asteroid impact, the overall global temperature would increase several degrees, lasting for hundreds of thousands of years. We would be facing even more extreme global warming effects, like dangerous weather, mass extinctions, and food shortages worldwide. The most damaging effects would be seen in Earth's lowest atmosphere layer, the troposphere, where the highest density of gas is. You might think that the air would catch fire at 1000°, but for this to occur we need a source of fuel and an oxidizer. Oxygen in the atmosphere is the oxidizer, but it has no fuel to react with. Also, about 78% of our atmosphere is the inert gas nitrogen. Inert gases have extremely low reactivity and can't ignite. So what about higher up in the thermosphere where the nitrogen levels are lower? Well, even if we had the right mix of fuel and oxidizer at such high altitudes, the oxygen density is so extremely low that gas particles don't collide as often as they do closer to the surface. While Earth doesn't experience such extreme temperatures in its atmosphere these days, other exoplanets like WASP 189 B reach surface temperatures of 3200°. This happens because it orbits its massive * so closely that it absorbs most of its solar radiation. Thankfully we are a safe enough distance from our sun to keep things cool. Dude, time to catch some gnarly waves and work on my tan man. But if we somehow accidentally detonated an antimatter bomb here on Earth, well, oh boy, that's a story for another What if?